Know Your LGBT History - Gay documentaries, past and present

You want an example of how far the lgbtq community has come? Check out documentaries looking at our lives.

The Homosexuals (sounds sinister, doesn't it?) was a CBS documentary which premiered in 1967. I will just break it down in two words - it stunk.

From Wikipedia:

Three years in the making, "The Homosexuals" went through two producers and multiple revisions. The episode included interviews with several gay men, psychiatrists, legal experts and cultural critics, interspersed with footage of a gay bar and a police sex sting.

As you can tell, it was not a fair documentary to our community. In all honesty, though, we are talking about 1967. Harvey Milk hadn't even come on the scene yet. And the Stonewall Riots were two years away.

Still, as the following clips shows, there is a reason why Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out called this documentary "the single most destructive hour of antigay propaganda in our nation's history."



If you closed your eyes, Wallace would remind you of Peter LaBarbera or Peter Sprigg.

Now take a look at a clips from a documentary which will be premiering next week to commemorate the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:




The phrase "as different as night and day" is a cliche, but in this case, it is a very apt cliche to use.

We have come a long way, haven't we? And we haven't even finished accomplishing what we are going to accomplish in this world. Don't let the haters get you down. Always fight and never give up.


Past Know Your LGBT Posts: 

Boehner's DOMA problems, Rick Perry's prayer event lies, and other Friday midday news briefs

Boehner Claims Homosexuality Is A Choice In Effort To Preserve ‘Defense Of Marriage Act’ - More and more, the case for DOMA is becoming a repeat of the case for Prop 8. I hope that the outcomes will also be similar.

Perry's Prayer Rally, The AFA, And Champion The Vote - Rick Perry lied when he said that his prayer event wouldn't be political.

New York Clerk Could Face Lawsuit for Marriage License Refusal - The religious right no doubt wants this. I say bring it on!
  
New analysis shows startling levels of discrimination against Black transgender people - And folks, this does not look good.

NC's leading 'protect marriage' group: Homosexuality is 'unnatural', 'biologically destructive', caused by 'abuse or acquired taste', 'changeable' - Ugh, I say. Ugh!

Social Security Ends ‘Gender Matching’ For Employee Records - Let's end with a bit of good news.

Why Americans for Truth is an anti-gay hate group

Americans for Truth about Homosexuality is one of the so-called "pro-family" organizations labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Of course the leader of this group, Peter LaBarbera (otherwise known as "Porno Pete") takes offense to this label. He said the following in a recent interview:

"They're treating pro-family groups like pariahs," the AFTAH founder compares. "It's a very dirty tactic, because we're not about hate; we're about loving people enough to tell them the truth . . ."

LaBarbera at the time was whining about how the media wasn't covering the fight between groups like his and the gay community as he thinks it should be covered, but let's look at his claim about "telling the truth."

The following are LaBarbera's idea of "telling the truth":

This is a badly doctored photo of openly gay Congressman Barney Frank. LaBarbera posted it on his site to accompany a ridiculous claim that gay TSA agents are getting their thrills by groping men.

No doubt Labarbera claims that it was a joke, but it's  a rather tasteless attack on the gay community and its par for the course for LaBarbera.

Other things LaBabera has done to earn his organization's hate group status includes:

1. attempting to smear GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) days before its annual Day of Silence event via a fake controversy involving pictures on a facebook page not even associated with GLSEN.

2. Smearing gays via a CDC report on an increase on HIV while intentionally downplaying the part of the report which clearly places the blame on this increase on homophobia (while at the same time implying that the report "dispels the homophobia causes AIDS propaganda")

New site spotlights heterosexual youth bullied into suicide by gay peers

I'm speechless.

There has been a lot of attention given to gay youth who have been bullied by their peers into either suicidal thoughts and actions.

And now it seems that the "worm has turned," so to speak. There is now a webpage focused on how many heterosexual youth have been bullied into suicide by members of the gay community.

Check out the site, Bullied by Gays, for more information.

The site is well-made and to the point. Like I said before, when I saw it, I was rendered speechless.

Hat tip to Think Progress.

Republican presidential candidates attending hate group summit and other Thursday midday news briefs

'Values Voter' catering: Canapés on the tray, animus on the slate - The Republican presidential candidates attending a summit by the Family Research Council, a hate group. How nice.

Related post - 16 reasons why the Family Research Council is a hate group

GOP Makes Last Ditch Effort To Postpone Repeal Of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell - My heart bleeds for these folks. Really it does.

A Christian Parent in Support of the CA FAIR Education Act - This is something which should get more press. Much more press.

Fischer Wants Departments of Education, Transportion, Agriculture, and HHS Eliminated - And replaced with the "Department to get rid of all of those pesky homosexuals." Okay that last part is not true. But then again, this IS Bryan Fischer we are talking about.

Religious right doom - DOMA trial a repeat of the Prop 8 trial?

According to Equality Matters, the government's case for the Defense of Marriage Act (taken up by Speaker of the House Boehner after the Obama Administration refused to defend the law) may be a repeat of the the disastrous Proposition 8 defense in 2010.

That defense was so pitiful that those defending Prop 8 (the law that outlawed gay marriage in California) could only muster two witnesses and both witnesses actually helped the case against the law.

Equality Matters breaks the similarities of the two cases down in three ways, bringing up information which the gay community should take note up (don't worry - I highlighted it):

Same Old Arguments

Last month, Paul Clement – the lead attorney hired by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) to defend DOMA in federal court – filed two motions to dismiss the case of Windsor v. United States, one of several current legal challenges to the 15-year-old marriage law. The briefs revived a long list of typical anti-gay talking points: children need a mother and a father, ‘traditional marriage’ is necessary to encourage procreation, etc.

These arguments are nothing new: many of them are the same ones that were used (and rejected) in the 2009 First Circuit case Gill et al v. US Office of Personnel Management, which found Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional. 

They’re also the same arguments put forward by proponents of Proposition 8 in the 2010 district court case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger. In Perry, each of those arguments was thoroughly dismantled, first by the plaintiffs’ attorneys and eventually by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s “factual, well-reasoned, and powerful” 136-page decision. Walker found that, even under the most deferential standard of judicial review, there was no rational basis for denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. 

( Editor's note - I published a post earlier looking at the pitiful junk science Clement is using to defend DOMA)

Same Old Non-Witnesses

In the Windsor case, Clement has had a difficult time securing credible experts and witnesses to provide testimony in defense of DOMA. As AMERICAblog’s Joe Sudbay has noted, Clement tried to rely on the ‘work’ of anti-gay activists like Maggie Gallagher. Windsor’s lawyers filed a motion to strike Maggie’s work from the record, citing their lack of an opportunity to cross examine her in court. 

A similar situation arose during the Perry trial. Defense attorney Charles Cooper found himself unable to put forth more than two ‘expert’ witnesses – one who was quickly dismissed as lacking “the qualifications to offer opinion testimony” and another who’s testimony was given “little weight.” Cooper’s inability to find credible experts to support Prop 8 eventually led Judge Walker to ask:

Seven million Californians, 70 judges and this long history that you described. Why did you present but one witness on this subject?

(Editor's note - For all of Maggie Gallagher's talk of "protecting marriage," why won't she allow herself to be put in a position to be cross-examined. The fact that the gay community has allowed this crucial contradiction to slip by unexploited - yes I said "unexploited" - is a huge problem in our fight for marriage equality.)

And Now, Same Old Shame


Monday it was reported that the House’s Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) would oppose video recording the courtroom proceedings in Golinski v. United States, another case challenging DOMA’s constitutionality in federal court. BLAG’s opposition effectively ensures that the proceedings won’t be videotaped, as all parties must agree before the arguments can be recorded. 

BLAG’s position is reminiscent of the ongoing battle to prevent the public from viewing the footage of the Perry trial.  

For months, Prop 8’s proponents have been fighting “tooth-and-nail” to prevent the release of the trial footage, claiming that their anti-equality witnesses might be harassed and targeted for opposing same-sex marriage. This claim makes little sense: transcripts from the trial are publicly available, and both anti-equality witnesses had national profiles well before the Perry trial began.

As the American Foundation for Equal Rights – which represented the plaintiffs in the Perry case – has pointed out, it’s much more likely that Prop 8’s defenders are embarrassed about what happened during the trial. The defense’s witnesses admitted to lacking specific knowledge on a number of issues, contradicted themselves, and on several occasions, even agreed with the arguments made against Prop 8.

If these trends continued to hold, then we will probably be seeing a repeat of what happened last year when Prop 8 was overturned - i.e. the gay community dancing in the streets while the religious right and their supporters trying to cover up their faulty case by blaming the judge.

I'm already shopping for my dancing shoes

Hate group leaders think they know who God will judge

Tony Perkins, Family Research Council

The prize for blatant chutzpah has to go to the Family Research Council head Tony Perkins and American Family Association head Tim Wildmon. During a recent AFA radio program, they claimed that God will "judge" America because of the gay community and legal abortion:

Perkins: You and I Tim as Americans have been given a very unique role in the history of mankind to be a part of that process and choosing our leaders, but with that opportunity comes a responsibility and an accountability. I think we’ll give an account for who the leaders of this nation, who the leaders are, and the policies that they adopt. We can’t simply wash our hands and say ‘oh just because we have a pro-abortion president, a Democratic president, we don’t have anything to do with that.’ No my friends, we do. When only fifty percent of the church-going population is registered to vote and only half of them are actually voting, I have some really somber news: I believe God is going to hold us accountable for the death, the destructive policies of this country that have devalued human life and are redefining marriage.
…
Wildmon: Folks keep in mind the overarching principle here we need to look at is a Biblical one, in that it is immoral, it is evil, it is wrong in the eyes of God to kill unborn babies.

Perkins: And as long as it’s happening in the United States we’re a party to it.

Wildmon: We’re a party to and we are being and we will be judged and held accountable for it, as a country.

Tim Wildmon, the American Family Association

Are they serious? While Wildmon is busy pointing the finger at gays and legalized abortion, he conveniently forgets the action of his group, the American Family Association, which include:

• inaccurately linking lgbts to pedophiles (a classic case of bearing false witness),

•  employing the rabid Bryan Fischer who has- when he's not claiming that gays made up the Nazi Party in German:

• made an ugly racial slur about President Obama, 

• viciously attacked a Medal of Honor recipient, and 

• wrote a ridiculous piece about the supposed lack of morals of Native Americans;

• and continuing to sell the fraudulent video "It's Not Gay," featuring the testimony of supposed "ex-gay" Michael Johnston (even though Johnston, an HIV-positive man, was discovered in 2003 to be having unprotected sex with various men). The AFA, by the way, is still selling the tape (seen here with Johnston's face is on the cover in this link).

And Perkins and the Family Research Council aren't exactly slouches in the bearing false witness or hypocrisy departments themselves.  I had trouble narrowing the number of lies they tell down to 16.

But the lies include distorting research, making false claims about GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network), which FRC was forced to take back after GLSEN handed them a cease-and-desist letter, and relying on the junk data of a discredited researcher who believes that gays stuff gerbils up their rears.

These are the main reasons why the Southern Poverty Law Center named both FRC and AFA as anti-gay hate groups.

If you ask me, I think that both Wildmon and Perkins need to worry less about how God will judge others and worry more about He will judge them.